@Adrifters - F550 Surf Camper Build - Adrift Motorhome

[RoyJ]

Issue I was having is that my rear kitchen, spare tire and motorcycle lift is pretty heavy and set substantially behind the rear axle. I had a suspension guru drive it and he felt that at times, the cantilever of that behind the axle weight was partially unloading the front axle and contributing to the bouncy ride in front. For several reason, I'm refabricating the rear kitchen. It will be smaller, closer to the rear axle and lighter, which should take some of the cantilever effect out. I'm also relocating my batteries and electrical bay to just in front of the rear axle. That coupled with 3" custom kings in the rear, 2.5" kings in front and hydraulic bump stops all around, will hopefully improve the driving manners. It's by no means bad right now, just trying to refine it.

First of all, AWESOME rig! I love your choice of V10, and keeping CG low with a basement.

I agree with bajajoaquin - your truck is much closer to the front GAWR than the rear, I wouldn't recommend further relying on the front to cantilever the rear. You also have to consider the polar moment of inertia when putting mass at extreme ends of the vehicle. You may achieve a better WEIGHT distribution, but very poor MASS distribution!

Is your front suspension still stock? Can you be more specific about the rough ride - is it bottoming out, topping out, or over spring and under-damped?

Knowing the exact issue would allow your suspension tech to better fine tune spring rate, damping, and travel for its current weight.

 

[S2DM]

Just got back from three weeks in Baja. We travelled with a u1300 mog, a tacoma and then us. Overall, I was impressed with how our rig did on all the solid stuff, it just blew through some really tough terrain. But, soft stuff proved our enemy pretty quick.



Mistakes made here were not walking it first (Heather actually asked me and I said we didn't need to Our beadlocks allowed us to airdown to 5psi, but it still took about three hours to dig out. Maxtrax were invaluable. A winch and a pullpall equivalent would have made this a 15 minute job. We are shopping now.

Getting stuck here was worth it though as it was the last leg of the trail to getting here.

Punta Cono



Caught more lobster than we could eat and a few sheepheads and calico sea bass.

 

[S2DM]

Heres a pic of our friends Mog heading out back to highway 1 from the beach.



Epic sunset



travelling across a dry lakebed on our way to some hellish terrain out to a remote beach

 

[S2DM]

The mog was just barely able to pass between this rock and the stuck truck, so we pulled it out of the way. We are 6 inches wides than the mog and struggled in some of the narrow stuff.





San Borja Mission





Tracks

 

[S2DM]

First of all, AWESOME rig! I love your choice of V10, and keeping CG low with a basement.

I agree with bajajoaquin - your truck is much closer to the front GAWR than the rear, I wouldn't recommend further relying on the front to cantilever the rear. You also have to consider the polar moment of inertia when putting mass at extreme ends of the vehicle. You may achieve a better WEIGHT distribution, but very poor MASS distribution!

Is your front suspension still stock? Can you be more specific about the rough ride - is it bottoming out, topping out, or over spring and under-damped?

Knowing the exact issue would allow your suspension tech to better fine tune spring rate, damping, and travel for its current weight.

Front suspension is still stock, atleast for the next few days. I don't think its the main problem, but its oversprung in front. I'm a large mammal (6'7") and I can barely get the front to move when I push on it, whereas on our little toyota I can push it down 3".

I heeded others advice and left the weight on the rear axle. I'm trying out a set of Carli 2.5" longer f250/350 linear rate springs with castor adjustment up front. I have a 1" leveling spacer and stock springs up there currenty. I may have to trim the the coil, but I'm hoping that the increased weight over the 250 and removing the spacer will put my front lift at 1-1.5" instead of 2.5".

 

[racer3822]

Nice pictures and updates. I just posted on your locker thread. Got stuck over the weekend too, although in snow not dirt. Wasn't that far offroad and just used the rear winch to get out.

Wrong tires for snow, but also considering lockers when I do the re-gearing to accommodate the 41" tires ordered.

About the pull pal, I was going to make something similar, didn't even know that existed. Do you think its heavy enough for your rig?

For the maxtrax I was also considering them after this weekend, but was also concerned about weight. I have about 10k on my rear axle. Thoughts?

 

[Healeyjet]

Wow great photos and sounds like an awesome trip. Did the Mog get stuck in the soft stuff?
Ward

 

[DzlToy]

instead of a Pull Pal, use or build something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xjuif0HCVi4#t=85

 

[S2DM]

Nice pictures and updates. I just posted on your locker thread. Got stuck over the weekend too, although in snow not dirt. Wasn't that far offroad and just used the rear winch to get out.

Wrong tires for snow, but also considering lockers when I do the re-gearing to accommodate the 41" tires ordered.

About the pull pal, I was going to make something similar, didn't even know that existed. Do you think its heavy enough for your rig?

For the maxtrax I was also considering them after this weekend, but was also concerned about weight. I have about 10k on my rear axle. Thoughts?

Yeah, but I'm making it custom, and fixed, I.E. no hinged portion, which is where they break with heavier loads. I have a spot set aside for it and will pack stuff around it I'm thinking

 

[S2DM]

Wow great photos and sounds like an awesome trip. Did the Mog get stuck in the soft stuff?
Ward

Yeah, the Mog got stuck in the same stuff and they are lighter, so it was objectively challenging soup to get through. Their shorter wheelbase really helped on some sections.

 

[S2DM]

instead of a Pull Pal, use or build something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xjuif0HCVi4#t=85

That's exactly what I was thinking of, thanks for the link. I finally broke down and bought solidworks and got plugged in with a local shop with laser, waterjet, and a plasma table. Hoping to start purpose building all the components in house.

 

[racer3822]

That's funny, I just saw that youtube video. I've checked on home made ones and found the following links helpful:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/24641-Testing-Pull-Pal-Alternative-Smittybilt-W-A-S-P-(Winch-Anchor-Support-Platform)
http://www.dieselplace.com/forum/76-speciality-forums/82-exterior/17297-making-pull-pal-winch-anchor.html
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/5207-pull-pal-alternatives?highlight=pull%20pal

Apparently the angles are very important or it doesn't dig in.

Then somehow I stumbled upon this image:


Makes it pretty easy to copy, I almost feel bad! I think I'd rather it fold, and just engineer that area much heavier.

That's exactly what I was thinking of, thanks for the link. I finally broke down and bought solidworks and got plugged in with a local shop with laser, waterjet, and a plasma table. Hoping to start purpose building all the components in house.

Where did you learn solidworks? I've played around with autocad inventor and have done small things, but anything too complicated I sometimes get stuck. Other than that just Youtube videos and Lynda.com

 

[DzlToy]

Those anchors are made in Tunisia with materials from France and Germany. The product is imported by the company owner in Florida. They are well reviewed, but the company does not publish any testing data from ABYC or similar. So, I would have no qualms about buying one to copy or making something similar from pictures and online specs. The angles are crucial however, as there are plenty of cheap Chinese knock off anchors that do not set or hold properly.

You could always buy a Pull Pal, but they are only rated to hold 6,000 pounds. I am not sure if that is a pulling load or if that is suggested max for the weight of the vehicle using the anchor. Pat Gremillion used to own Pull Pall and Ready Welder, not sure if he still does or not, but he has been in the off road world for 25 years or more, so I would presume he knows a thing or two about vehicle recovery.

 

[racer3822]

Those anchors are made in Tunisia with materials from France and Germany. The product is imorted by the company owner in Florida. They are well reviewed, but the company does not publish any testing data from ABYC or similar. So, I would have no qualms about buying one to copy or making something similar from pictures and online specs. The angles are crucial however, as there are plenty of cheap Chinese knock off anchors that do not set or hold properly.

You could always buy a Pull Pal, but they are only rated to hold 6,000 pounds. I am not sure if that is a pulling load or if that is suggest max for the weight of the vehicle using the anchor. Pat Gremillion used to own Pull Pall and Ready Welder, not sure if he still does or not, but he has been in the off road world for 25 years or more, so I would presume he knows a thing or two about vehicle recovery.

They have a 16,000 lb version apparently. Pretty pricey. http://www.pullpal.com/aboutPP.html

 

[S2DM]

In the midst of a pretty significant rebuild, then repaint on the camper.

We took the rig down to Baja a few months ago to test how everything was working. We found a few problems with our flatbed and associated mount we had fabricated for us by Overland Explorer. Its been frustating to say the least that the only parts of the build we sub'd out are the parts that failed. They showed zero interest in fixing or replacing anything so we decided to start from scratch and just do it ourselves this time.

The flatbed also ended up a fair bit heavier than we were told when I took it off the truck and actually weighed it. That, in conjunction with the mount and locker failures, made us decide to just let the truck be dedicated to the camper instead of double duty, so we designed a permanent subframe mount system and ditched the flatbed from them. Thus far, its been much stronger, and also shaved almost 700lbs of weight off the truck, which really helped as well.





And here is a pic of the redesign with the new storage boxes.